and the violent heat painting her cheeks bright red.
‘Are you comfortable?’ Raffa asked.
With him staring at her naked body…?
‘Relax.’
‘I might be able to if you’d stop reading my mind.’
‘I’m reading your muscles—they’re all bunched up…’
The touch of Raffa’s hands was indescribable. He had a wonderful natural skill that banished all signs of tension within the first few seconds. Her only complaint now was that by confining his attentions to her back he perversely made her think very rude thoughts indeed.
She wanted a lot more than Raffa was prepared to give, Casey realised—this really was just a massage.
‘Is the pressure okay for you?’
As Raffa kneaded her all too compliant shoulders, she managed, ‘Perfect…’ Perfect for her shoulders, that was, but she wanted him to touch her intimately.
Sighing, she closed her eyes, wondering how to transmit that feeling. Should she purse her lips like this? Or loosen her mouth just a little and stare at Raffa with her own particular brand of sultry? Should she try a little moue and then look away? Or just brazen it out? Maybe she should tease and run—
‘Have you done with all available facial expressions, or would you like to try for one more?’
She came to with a jolt, noticing that at sometime Raffa had pulled on his robe. ‘Is my treatment over?’ Must she sound quite so disappointed?
‘For now.’
For now? The real question was what next?
What came next was the biggest surprise of all. It seemed Raffa had no difficulty communicating his feelings, and he would quite like to kiss her too, she saw when he smiled faintly as he held her gaze.
‘How do you do that?’
‘Read your thoughts?’ As he spoke he lifted her into a seated position on the bed in front of him and brought his face within kissable distance of hers. ‘Years of dedicated practice…’
Casey frowned. Did she want to know that?
She could always join Raffa’s class, her bolder self suggested.
Join his class and then insist on private lessons, Casey concluded optimistically. ‘You’re obviously way ahead of me in that—so perhaps I need more tuition.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Raffa agreed. ‘Could you face another ride?’
A ride? ‘How will that help?’ She covered herself with the towel. Raffa might have no inhibitions, but it wasn’t catching.
‘I want to show you something. Are you up for it?’
‘What is it?’
‘A place I’d like to show you.’
‘Somewhere special?’
‘Somewhere that means a lot to me.’
‘Your palace?’
‘Come on—you can take a cushion with you.’ As he spoke he chucked her a cushion and she caught it.
‘What’s this for?’
‘For the horse,’ he said. ‘To protect his back from you bouncing up and down on it.’
Laughing, she chucked the cushion back at him, and somehow in between the tension between them disappeared.
‘Or,’ Raffa said as he thought about it, ‘you could ride in front of me. We’ll travel faster that way.’
‘Do I have to ride at all?’
His eyes darkened with amusement. ‘The more you ride, the easier it gets.’
‘Do I really look that gullible?’ Casey demanded, smiling at him as she planted her hands on her hips.
‘Shall we find out?’ Raffa challenged. ‘Come on.’ In his hands there was a shimmer of something blue. ‘Get dressed and we’ll go.’
‘What is this?’ Casey held up the exquisite silver- embroidered robe Raffa handed her. ‘This isn’t the robe I was wearing earlier.’
‘But you’ve been prepared for the Sheikh since then.’
‘Hah!’ Casey exclaimed, balling it up and tossing it back at him. ‘I’ll wear trousers for riding, thank you. And I should remind you—’
‘What?’ Raffa cut across her with a very wicked look indeed.
‘I’m pretty hopeless on a horse.’
‘But I’m not,’ he pointed out. ‘So no excuses.’
She had never felt safer or more at risk in her life. Seated in front of Raffa on his magnificent black stallion, it was impossible to feel she might tumble to the ground—but that was no help when it came to the far worse peril of falling in love.
The sensation of having her long hair streaming behind her as the stallion raced across the desert plain while Raffa held her safe was amazing. If he had decided to think up the most romantic journey on earth, he couldn’t have made a better job of it. The sky was littered with stars, while the moon lit their way, and the mountains were jagged fingers that seemed to beckon her ever deeper into the wild land that Raffa called home. He held the reins loosely in one hand and kept her close with the other. She could feel his warmth and his strength, could hear his heart beating, while his fresh minty breath brushed her cheek.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back, allowing her hips to move to the rhythm of the stallion’s explosive gait. Far from hating horse-riding, as she always had, she was beginning to love it, and to hope the magical journey could last for ever.
It would last for ever in her memory, at least. How could it not, when she was riding through the desert night in front of a sheikh who encapsulated every fantasy hero she’d ever had? With his black robes flying behind him and his face hidden behind the mysterious howlis. She was wrapped in an erotic fantasy that far exceeded everything she could dream up.
And Raffa’s palace? Casey wondered. What would that be like?
It would be located far from the public gaze, she decided, and protected by the granite peaks they were riding towards. It would be hard to find—it would be an eyrie, a fortress, a lair fit for the golden lion of the desert. There would be sumptuous rooms protected from the relentless desert sun beneath cupolas of solid gold, and there would be intimate courtyards where lovers could meet unobserved. On the walls inside the palace there would be painted erotic scenes, and of course a sheikh-sized bed, over which a softly whirring fan would turn lazily to cool the lovers on their tangled sheets. Jewel-studded walls would bear silent witness to their lovemaking, while fountains in the garden beyond the windows would sing a siren song to the rhythm of their sighs…
